Doctor Who 50th Spoiler - Mini Prequel!

If you're in the UK or have a UK proxy server, there is a prequel to the Doctor Who 50th available. It is a huge surprise (sort of) and spoiler (definitely!). If you don't have a proxy, I'll try to find a non-UK link. Otherwise I'll post the spoilers in the first comment. Skip the comments if you don't want to know!

Really my only complaint is that I always had much fun imagening shortly-after-regeneration-Nine still being stuck in Eight's frilly & lacy clothes and that was a very amusing picture...but now we know that didn't happen. Yes...that's some very First World Fangirl Problems...

I'm really happy that he mentioned all the past companions from the audioplays (I really enjoyed them but didn't get round listening to them for quite a while now)...so guess they're also canon now.

The prequel is called Night of the Doctor. It has 8 trying to save a woman on a crashing spaceship. As soon as she learns he is a Time Lord, she refuses to have anything to do with him and would rather die than be saved by him. He argues he is sitting out the Time War and one of the few good ones. She says there are no good ones and the entire universe will be destroyed because of his people. He says "At least I'm not a Dalek." and she says there is no difference anymore. The ship crashes on a planet where some old priestesses have been expecting the Doctor to return. He is declared dead. They bring him back to life and tell him he has to end the war and he is the only one who can. They use the dead woman from the crash to manipulate him into agreeing to giving up healing and being the Doctor in order to save the entire universe. He drinks a potion and he turns into a young John Hurt. Hurt's guy then picks up the dead woman's bandolier thing and that's what we've seen him wearing in the pics. Neither the 8th coming back from the dead nor the transformation into Hurt appears to be done as a regular regeneration. Hurt is in the credits as "The War Doctor."

Awesome: Basically everything!!

Problem: there had still better be an unexpected twist because so far this is setting up the entire secret of the War Doctor to be about the Time War and the Moment and that will really infuriate me!

[spoiler comments on your spoilers! ] so far this is setting up the entire secret of the War Doctor to be about the Time War and the Moment and that will really infuriate me!"

That's interesting. Why infuriating? It's been the unexplained thing in the background for all the new Who; it seems to makes sense to deal with it now. To generate an entire new Secret that's never been previously referenced- now that would really infuriate me!

No real new spoilers here, I think, just specualtion.

Because...

9: Hi! I'm the Doctor! I've kind of got PTSD from when I fought in this thing called the Time War and committed genocide of two peoples, one of them my own.

10: Hi! I'm the Doctor. What he said ^ but I've got a bit more distance and am getting over it a bit so I don't talk about it quite as often, though I'm around longer so in total I probably talk about it more. Having committed genocide, especially of your own people leaving you all alone, really sucks!

11: Hi! I'm the Doctor. What they said ^ but I've got even more distance so I'm not as mopey and don't talk about it much at all. Also, did I happen to mention I'm not really 11 because I have a secret persona that I've kept hidden from everyone and who I completely deny as part of my identity because he did something terrible, horrible, and nasty that was not done by me as the Doctor.

Audience / Companions: WOAH! That's crazy! What did he do?

50th Anniversary Special Doctors: Oh. Uh.... he fought in this thing called the Time War and committed genocide of two peoples, one of them my/his own.

See how that would make no sense? You don't have a secret persona that you deny as part of your identity because it did something awful and terrible that was definitely not done by you then go around telling everyone that you did the something awful and accept the something awful as part of your identity. I'm excited about the Time War stuff, there just has to be something else, something that is actually a secret, or the whole secret identity thing completely falls apart and just becomes a stupid gimmick with no logical consistency.

Re: No real new spoilers here, I think, just specualtion.

oh yes, I'll grant you that. There has to be something more than we've been told already or it's a pretty crap secret! I would just much prefer it to be a new secret about something that we already know something about than a new secret about something we've never been told about before. Anyone can invent a totally new secret for a character, the clever bit is to subvert what people think they already know. I'm pretty confident that Moffat knows what he's doing in that department, anyway (if it had been RTD I'd be more worried!)

Re: No real new spoilers here, I think, just specualtion.

There has to be something more than we've been told already or it's a pretty crap secret!Exactly! That's my main point of emphasis. There just has to be something else and it needs to be somehow bigger than the Time Bubble thing and genocide of two peoples for which we know 9, 10, and 11 have all claimed responsibility.

I was discussing this with a friend and he suggested that it starts with the not-the-Doctor doing stuff in the Time War and even he thinks he is going to be the one to do the Moment thing but then, to quote my friend, "it turns out that Hurt's doctor did something else, either cowardly, necessary, or brutal, that necessitates another doctor doing the time bubble moment. That way there's a twist, but the canonical doctors still take ownership for the moment." Then the real Doctors would hate Hurt not just for the decision to become a warrior and all the fighting he could do that way but also for putting the real Doctors in the position of having to do the Moment. Of course, all this will require messing with the Doctor's memory a bit, a problem they always have when they do Doctor crossing his own timeline stories. 9 would have to remember enough from Hurt to be all PTSD and take ownership for the Moment that he presumably wouldn't have actually done but would know that 10, 11, or both would do in his future and in which Hurt was involved in his past. Then 10 and 11 obviously don't remember everything from Hurt or for 11 from 10. The trickiest bit, I think, is 9 taking responsibility for it if it is either a past that he denies or any future regens.